Wars of the Roses (52 page)

Tiptoft had served as Treasurer of England for three years under Henry VI, and in 1457 had made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land before spending two years at Padua in Italy, studying Roman law, Greek, Latin and the humanist culture of the Renaissance. After this, he rapidly acquired renown as an outstanding Latin scholar, being indeed the foremost scholar among the English nobility and one of the earliest English humanists. He translated Cicero, and his works were later some of the first to be printed by William Caxton. He also amassed a valuable collection of manuscripts, it being said abroad that he had robbed Italy to adorn England. Tiptoft certainly modelled himself on the princes of Italy, and followed many of the precepts of current Italian statecraft that would appear in Machiavelli’s
The Prince
. He was a vigorous supporter of Edward IV, who was impressed by him and appointed him Constable of England; thereafter the Earl used his many talents and abilities in helping to crush Lancastrian resistance to Yorkist rule.

There was another side to Tiptoft. This ostentatiously pious and
flamboyant man with the cold, protruding eyes could be ruthless and sadistic. ‘The Earl of Worcester was known to be cruel and merciless,’ records the Great Chronicle of London. In 1467 he ‘put to death two sons of the Earl of Desmond, who were so tender of age that one of them, who had a boil on his neck, said to the executioner that was going to chop off his head, “Gentle godfather, beware of the sore on my neck.” ’ Tiptoft seems also to have taken pleasure in devising novel methods of execution, some of which he imported from abroad, and ‘for these reasons, and other similar cruelties, he was much hated by the common people and reputed in some cases even worse than he deserved’. Many complained that his judgements were based on the laws of Padua and not of England.

Edward IV’s attitude towards his magnates, even such as Tiptoft, was tolerant and conciliatory. He realised that to stay in power he had to cultivate a wide base of support among the aristocracy and reward those who had supported him. He did his best to woo recalcitrant nobles by judicious patronage and promises of advancement. Some he won over; others remained loyal to Henry VI; a few cared only for their own profit and interests, and took what was offered without much commitment. In order to bolster support among the lords, Edward created or revived more than thirty-five peerages during the early years of his reign. He did not promote ‘new men’ with roots in the mercantile class to the peerage; although he valued their talents and services he endowed them ‘with wealth, not dignity’. Thus they were not a threat to the magnates, whose wealth and influence the King could not afford to ignore.

He was careful to ward off rivalry between Yorkist nobles who were vying with each other for the prizes of high office. When important matters, such as foreign policy, rebellions or war, were being discussed in Council, the King always summoned and consulted his magnates. He made it clear that he relied on them at all times to uphold his authority, his peace and his justice in their own localities; in return, they could rely on him to be a generous patron.

The influential Londoners had long since given their allegiance to the Yorkist cause, and the King was sensitive to their needs and interests, always trying to formulate his policies to their advantage. His mercantile enterprises enabled a sense of affinity to develop between him and the London merchants, and many were honoured with his friendship. Under his rule, despite the unpopular forced loans which were demanded of them from time to time, and the liberties taken by the King with their wives and daughters, they prospered, and gave thanks for his virtues.

O
nce Berwick was theirs, the Scots saw no further advantage to be gained from the Lancastrian exiles, and lost interest in their cause. Mary of Gueldres was finding it expensive to support them, and by the summer of 1461 it was obvious to Queen Margaret that the faction-ridden Scottish court was unlikely to offer her any financial aid. All she could expect was the goodwill of individuals such as the Earl of Angus, who offered her men in return for the promise of a dukedom in England. Her best hope now, she realised, lay in appealing to Charles VII of France for assistance.

In July, the Queen dispatched Somerset and two other envoys, Lord Hungerford and Sir Robert Whittingham, to the French court to ask for men, ships and a loan of 20,000 crowns. She also employed Pierre de Brézé to request a further loan of 80,000 crowns and another fleet to enable the Lancastrians to conquer the Channel Islands and so make a bridgehead to England. ‘If the Queen’s intentions were discovered,’ wrote Brézé, ‘her friends would unite with her enemies to kill her.’ Charles agreed that Brézé could assemble ships and men for the projected invasion, and with French help the Lancastrians did occupy Jersey that year, though it was later recaptured by the Yorkists.

By invoking foreign aid from England’s traditional enemies, although it was indeed the only realistic option open to her, Margaret made the Lancastrian cause doubly unpopular in England and provided the Yorkists with splendid propaganda material. Her actions changed the course of the Wars of the Roses, which as a result now became dependent upon the tortuous diplomacy and shifting alliances of late fifteenth-century European politics. Her involvement of foreign princes in the conflict gave them the
opportunity to subvert the common weal of England by playing off one faction against the other there and inciting rebellion.

Before Somerset, Hungerford and Whittingham could gain an audience, Charles VII died on 22 July and was succeeded by his son Louis XI. This was seemingly bad news for the Queen, because Louis hated his mother’s family, the House of Anjou, and manifested this almost at once by placing Hungerford and Whittingham under house arrest at Dieppe, while Somerset found himself a prisoner in the Castle of Arques.

Louis had hitherto been friendly towards the Yorkists, and news of his accession was greeted with some relief at Edward IV’s court as fears of a French invasion receded. But this euphoria was short-lived. During the 1460s international politics were dominated by the rivalry between France and its vassal state, Burgundy; both France and Burgundy wanted the friendship of England, but France, although more powerful, was England’s traditional enemy, while the Low Countries, ruled by Burgundy, were the chief market for English wool.

Louis’s main ambition was to conquer the duchy of Burgundy, as well as that of Brittany, and absorb them into the kingdom of France. He both resented and feared the power of Burgundy, and was therefore determined to prevent Edward IV from forming a defensive alliance with Duke Philip. Louis would, with reason, come to be known as the ‘Universal Spider’, because his web of political intrigue encompassed the whole of Europe, and his portraits show a man of uninspiring appearance, with an over-long, hooked nose, a mouth on which sat an expression of perpetual disdain, a double chin, and heavy-lidded, wary eyes.

Edward IV was in a strong position, and knew it. He was a bachelor, free to make a marriage alliance with either France or Burgundy. It was now a question of waiting to see who could offer the most advantageous terms.

On 30 August, Lord Hungerford wrote to Queen Margaret from Dieppe, sending three copies of his letter by different routes, informing her that he and Whittingham had been summoned to see King Louis. ‘Madam, fear not, but be of good comfort,’ he wrote, ‘and beware ye venture not your person by sea till ye have other word from us.’ Yet, to their surprise, the envoys found Louis prepared to be very friendly towards them and their mistress, the reason being that it now suited his purpose to see England divided by civil war. He had decided on an aggressive policy against Burgundy and did not want Edward IV to unite with Philip against him. He therefore told Hungerford and Whittingham that he would support
the Queen in her attempts to subvert the north of England. This was good news indeed, for the King of France was a powerful ally. From now on Margaret’s chief desire would be to meet with him and conclude a formal Franco-Lancastrian alliance.

Meanwhile, King Edward’s spies had intercepted one of Hungerford’s letters, which proved to him that Margaret was intriguing with the French. From this time onwards he and his government would live with the ever-present fear of invasion. Believing that this would centre on the north, the King sent Warwick to capture the great Northumbrian stronghold of Alnwick, seat of the Earl of Northumberland who had fallen at Towton and would soon be posthumously attainted. Northumberland’s younger brother, Sir Ralph Percy, had submitted to Edward and was now entrusted with the safe-keeping of the defensive royal castle of Dunstanburgh on the Northumbrian coast. In September, Warwick took not only Alnwick Castle but also Bamburgh Castle. The chief strongholds of Northumbria were now in Yorkist hands.

King Edward entrusted the task of crushing the rebellious Lancastrians in Wales to his lieutenants Lord Ferrers and Sir William Herbert, the latter of whom had been created Lord Herbert of Raglan, Chepstow and Gower in July. Their first objective was to take Pembroke Castle, which surrendered on 30 September. When Herbert took possession he found four-year-old Henry Tudor living in the castle with his mother and her second husband, Henry Stafford. Herbert bought Henry’s wardship for £1000 and removed him from his mother’s care and into his own household. The boy spent much of the next nine years at the luxuriously appointed Raglan Castle where Herbert, although a rough and often violent man, proved a surprisingly good guardian, providing the boy with an excellent education and planning to marry him to his daughter, Maud Herbert.

By 4 October only two Welsh castles remained in enemy hands – Carreg Cennen in Dyfed, which fell to the Yorkists in 1462, and the mighty fortress of Harlech.

It was Edward IV’s intention that Herbert should replace Jasper Tudor, who had now fled via Ireland to Scotland, as the King’s representative in south Wales. This was no easy job, for there were many who lamented the departure of Jasper and resented the presence of Herbert. Moreover, during the campaign Herbert had again fallen out with Warwick, this time over who should have possession of the lordship of Newport, a dispute which rapidly turned into a major and long-lasting feud fuelled by Warwick’s jealousy of Herbert’s status in Wales. Warwick had long cherished
dreams of building a power base in the principality, and now Herbert stood in his way.

The first Parliament of Edward’s reign met in November in the Painted Chamber of the Palace of Westminster. Addressing the Speaker the King proclaimed his ‘right and title unto the Crown’, and thanked Almighty God that his house was restored to it, promising to be ‘as good and gracious a sovereign lord as ever was any of my noble progenitors’. On 1 November, he created his brother Richard Duke of Gloucester and sent the boy to live in Warwick’s household at Middleham to be educated with the sons of other peers, as befitted his rank. On the same day Edward raised Lord Fauconberg to be Earl of Kent.

Both King and Parliament were anxious to re-establish the moral, political and legal authority of Parliament, and there was a high turnout of magnates. The Lord Chancellor announced that the practices of livery and maintenance
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would be banned by law from now on. On the King’s command, a comprehensive programme of legal reform was to be launched. To enable the authorities to restore law and order, all subjects were urged to bring murderers and thieves to justice, while those who had been pardoned of earlier crimes would face the severest penalties if they re-offended. Commissioners were sent into all parts of the realm to ensure that the law was being enforced fairly, and, predictably, this resulted in the courts convicting a record number of offenders. Justice was truly being seen to be done.

On 4 November, Acts of Attainder were passed against 150 Lancastrians, including ‘the usurper’ Henry VI, Margaret, ‘late called Queen of England’, Edward, who is referred to as her son, not Henry’s, Somerset, Exeter, Devon, Wiltshire, Northumberland, Fortescue, Beaumont, Roos, Clifford, Hungerford, Welles, Neville, Dacre and Trollope. Many of these were dead and beyond human retribution, in which case their relatives would suffer confiscation of all their property, but all were thus declared traitors to their liege lord Edward IV. The confiscation of so much Lancastrian property meant that Edward could reward his supporters well, and there followed a large-scale redistribution of lands, titles, offices and estates among the Yorkist hierarchy. The duchy of Lancaster was
also declared forfeit to the Crown, in whose hands it has remained ever since, and all true subjects were forbidden, on pain of death, to communicate with the former king and queen.

Lord Clifford’s widow, Margaret Bromflete, went in great fear that the King’s vengeance would extend to her seven-year-old son, Henry, the dispossessed heir. Fortunately, one of her former nursery maids at Skipton Castle had recently married a shepherd and gone to live at Londesbrough, where Lady Clifford’s family had an estate, and this woman now agreed to take Henry into her home and bring him up as her own. When the King’s officers came to Skipton, Lady Clifford told them that she had sent the boy and his younger brother to the safety of the Low Countries, where they were being educated. Her story was believed, but she was nevertheless evicted from Skipton and went to live with her father at Londesbrough, where she at least had the consolation of being able to see her son.

Another boy who was deprived of his title by Parliament was Henry Tudor, whose earldom of Richmond was given to the King’s brother Clarence. As for the attainted Duke of Exeter, he had gone into exile on the Continent, where Commines saw him ‘walking barefooted, begging his livelihood from house to house’.

Other Lancastrian supporters chose to remain in England and work for the restoration of Henry VI. Early in 1462, John de Vere, 12th Earl of Oxford, whose line could be traced back to the time of the Conqueror, was in communication with the exiled royal family in Scotland. Oxford was one of the Queen’s chief agents in England and the head of a group of conspirators who were planning a Lancastrian invasion and the overthrow of Edward IV. Unfortunately for the Earl his courier was a Yorkist double-agent, who took his letters straight to the King. They revealed that Oxford, having learned that Edward was planning to march north to deal with the Lancastrian rebels, intended to follow him with a bigger force, pretending he had come to offer assistance, although, when the time was ripe, he would attack and kill him. Somerset, then in Bruges, would return to England, while Henry VI would lead an army of Scots over the border and Jasper Tudor would invade the south coast from Brittany.